952 


IRLF 


ISfl 


OSCAR  WILDE 


OSCAR  WILDE 


A.  EDWARD  NEWTON 

"OAK  KNOLL" 
DAYLESFORD,  PENNSYLVANIA 


The;  Beauties.  o£  £h>.  tjihjg  are  apparent:  the 
Blundeys'.a/e  not  So/oBvlpils;  permit  me  to  call  atten 
tion  to  them.  "  *• 

.*JE\S<lprCt^yiI»wks.^p  yleaseol  with  the  idea  of  getting 
a  *f re'sh "  staf t  th'at  I  began  «,t«tne*  beginning  twice,  on 
page  six.  The  "judicious  reader"  will  begin  at  the 
beginning — once. 

A  comma  is  just  the  thing  wanted  before  break 
fast — at  least  on  page  seven. 

1905  should  be  1895  or  words  to  that  effect,  on 
page  twenty-one — I  never  was  good  at  figures. 


A.  E.  N. 


OSCAR    WILDE 

My  interest  in  Oscar  Wilde  is  u  very  old  story;  I 
went  to  hear  him  lecture  when  I  was  a  boy,  and,  boy- 
like,  I  wrote  and  asked  him  for  his  autograph,  which 
he  sent  me  and  which  I  still  have. 

It  seems  strange  that  I  can  look  back  through 
thirty  years  to  his  visit  to  Philadelphia,  and  in  imagi 
nation  see  him  on  the  platform  of  old  Horticultural 
Hall.  I  remember  too  the  discussion  which  his  visit 
to  Philadelphia  occasioned,  preceded  as  it  was  by  the 
publication  in  Boston  of  his  volume  of  Poems,  the 
English  edition  having  been  received  with  greater 
cordiality  than  usually  marks  a  young  poet's  first 
production — for  such  it  practically  was. 

At  the  time  of  his  appearance  on  the  lecture  plat 
form  he  was  a  large,  well-built,  distinguished-looking 
man,  about  twenty-six  years  old,  with  rather  long 
hair,  generally  wearing  knee  breeches  and  silk  stock 
ings.  Any  impressions  which  I  may  have  received  of 
his  lecture  are  now  very  vague.  I  remember  that  he 
used  the  word  "renaissance"  a  good  deal  and  that  at 
the  time  it  was  a  new  word  to  me,  and  it  has  always 
since  been  a  word  which  has  rattled  round  in  my 
head  very  much  as  the  blessed  word  "Mesopotamia" 
did  in  the  mind  of  the  old  lady,  who  remarked  that  no 


257203 


one  should  deprive  her  of  the  hope  of  eternal  punish 
ment. 

Now,  it  would  be  well  at  the  outset,  in  discussing 
Oscar  Wilde,  to  abandon  immediately  all  hope  of 
eternal  punishment — for  others.  My  subject  is  a 
somewhat  difficult  one,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  speak  of 
Wilde  without  overturning  some  of  the  more  or  less 
fixed  traditions  we  have  grown  up  with.  We  all  have 
a  lot  of  axioms  in  our  systems,  even  if  we  are  discreet 
enough  to  keep  them  from  our  tongues,  and  to  do  Wilde 
justice  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  free  ourselves  of  some 
of  these.  To  make  my  meaning  clear,  take  the  accepted 
one  that  genius  is  simply  the  capacity  for  hard  work. 
This  is  all  very  well  at  the  top  of  a  copy  book,  or  to 
repeat  to  your  son  when  you  are  didactically  inclined, 
but  for  the  purposes  of  this  discussion  this  and  others 
like  it  should  be  abandoned.  Having  cleared  our 
minds  of  cant,  we  might  also  frankly  admit  that  a 
romantic  or  a  sinful  life  is,  generally  speaking,  more 
interesting  than  a  good  one. 

Few  men  in  English  literature  have  lived  a  nobler, 
purer  life  than  Robert  Southey,  and  yet  his  very  name 
sets  us  a-yawning,  and  if  he  lives  at  all  it  is  solely  due 
to  his  little  potboiler,  become  a  classic,  the  "Life  of 
Nelson."  The  two  great  events  in  Nelson's  life  were 
his  meeting  with  Lady  Emma  and  his  meeting  with  the 
French.  Now,  disguise  it  as  we  may,  it  still  remains 


true  that  in  thinking  of  Nelson  we  think  as  much  of 
Lady  Emma  as  we  do  of  Trafalgar.  Of  course,  in  saying 
this  I  realize  that  I  am  not  an  Englishman  making  a 
public  address  on  the  anniversary  of  the  great  battle. 

Southey's  life  gives  the  lie  to  that  solemn  remark 
about  genius  being  simply  a  capacity  for  hard  work: 
if  it  were  so  he  would  have  ranked  high:  he  worked 
incessantly,  produced  his  to-day-neglected  poems, 
supported  his  family  and  contributed  toward  the 
support  of  the  families  of  his  friends.  He  was  a  good 
man,  and  worked  himself  to  death;  but  he  was  not  a 
genius. 

On  the  other  hand,  Wilde  was — but  his  life  was 
not  good,  it  was  not  pure;  he  did  injury  to  his  friends, 
and  to  his  wife  and  children,  the  greatest  wrong  a 
man  could  do  them,  so  that  she  died  of  a  broken  heart 
and  his  sons  live  under  an  assumed  name;  yet,  notwith 
standing  all  this,  perhaps  to  some  extent  by  reason  of 
it,  he  is  a  most  interesting  personality,  and  no  doubt 
his  future  place  in  literature  will  be  to  some  extent 
influenced  by  the  fate  which  struck  him  down  just  at 
the  moment  of  his  greatest  success. 

Remembering  Dr.  Johnson's  remark  that  in  lapi 
dary  work  a  man  is  not  upon  oath,  it  has  always  seemed 
to  me  that  something  like  the  epitaph  he  wrote  for 
Goldsmith's  monument  in  Westminster  Abbey  with 
equal  justice  might  have  been  carved  upon  Wilde's 


obscure  tombstone  in  a  neglected  corner  of  Bagneux 
Cemetery  in  Paris.  The  inscription  I  refer  to  trans- 
latest  "He  left  scarcely  any  style  of  writing  untouched 
and  touched  nothing  that  he  did  not  adorn." 

I  am  too  good  a  Goldsmithian  to  compare  Gold 
smith  with  all  his  faults  and  follies  to  Wilde  with  his 
faults  and  follies  and  vices  superadded,  but  Wilde 
wrote  "Dorian  Gray,"  a  novel  original  and  powerful 
in  conception,  as  powerful  as  "Dr.  Jekyl  and  Mr. 
Hyde;"  and  remembering  that  Wilde  was  also  an 
essayist,  a  poet  and  a  dramatist,  I  think  we  may 
fairly  say  that  he  too  touched  nothing  that  he  did  not 
adorn — to  begin  at  the  beginning. 

But  to  begin  at  the  beginning.  Wilde  was  not 
especially  fortunate  in  his  parents.  His  father  was 
a  surgeon-oculist  of  Dublin,  and  was  knighted  by  the 
lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland.  Just  why  does  not  appear, 
nor  is  it  important:  his  son  always  seemed  a  little 
ashamed  of  the  incident.  His  mother  was  the  daughter 
of  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England.  She  was 
"advanced"  for  her  time,  wrote  prose  and  verse,  under 
the  nom  de  plume  of  Speranza,  which  \.ere  published 
frequently  in  a  magazine,  which  was  finally  suppressed 
for  sedition.  If  Lady  Wilde  was  emancipated  in 
thought,  of  her  lord  it  may  be  said  that  he  put  no 
restraint  whatever  upon  his  acts.  They  were  a  bril 
liant,  but  what  we  would  call  to-day  a  Bohemian 


couple.  I  have  formed  an  impression  that  the  father, 
in  spite  of  certain  weaknesses  of  character,  was  a  man 
of  solid  attainments,  while  of  the  mother  some  one  has 
said  that  she  reminded  him  of  a  tragedy  queen  at  a 
suburban  theatre.  This  is  awful. 

Oscar  Wilde  was  a  second  son,  born  in  Dublin,  on 
the  16th  of  October,  1854.  He  went  to  a  school  at 
Enniskillen,  afterwards  to  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and 
finally  to  Magdalen  College,  Oxford. 

He  had  already  begun  to  make  a  name  for  himself 
at  Trinity,  where  he  won  a  gold  medal  for  an  essay  on 
the  Greek  comic  poets;  but  when  in  June,  1878,  he 
received  the  Newdigate  Prize  for  English  verse  for  a 
poem  "Ravenna,"  which  was  recited  at  the  Sheldonian 
Theatre  at  Oxford,  it  can  fairly  be  said  that  he  had 
achieved  distinction. 

While  at  Magdalen,  Wilde  is  said  to  have  fallen 
under  the  influence  of  Ruskin,  and  spent  some  time 
in  breaking  stones  upon  the  highways,  upon  which 
operation  Ruskin  was  experimenting.  It  may  be 
admitted  that  the  work  for  its  own  sake  never  attracted 
Wilde;  it  was  the  reward  which  followed^  breakfast 
parties  with  informal  and  unlimited  talk  in  Ruskin's 
rooms. 

One  does  not  have  to  read  much  of  Wilde  to  dis 
cover  that  he  had  as  great  aversion  for  games  which 
kept  him  in  the  open  as  for  physical  labor.  Bernard 


Shaw,  that  other  Irish  enigma,  who  in  many  ways  of 
thought  and  speech  resembles  Wilde,  when  asked  what 
his  recreations  were,  replied  "anything  except  sport." 
Wilde  said  he  would  not  play  cricket  because  of  the 
indecent  postures  it  demanded;  fox  hunting,  his 
phrase  will  be  remembered,  was  "the  unspeakable 
after  the  uneatable."  But  he  was  the  leader,  if  not 
the  founder,  of  the  aesthetic  cult,  the  symbols  of  which 
were  peacock  feathers,  sunflowers,  lilies  and  blue  china. 
His  rooms,  perhaps  the  most  talked  about  in  Oxford, 
were  beautifully  paneled  in  oak,  decorated  with  porce 
lain  supposed  to  be  very  valuable,  hung  with  old  en 
gravings.  From  the  windows  there  was  a  lovely  view 
of  the  River  Cherwell  and  the  beautiful  grounds  of 
Magdalen  College. 

He  soon  made  himself  the  most  talked  of  person 
in  the  place;  abusing  his  foes  who  feared  his  tongue. 
His  friends,  as  he  later  said  of  some  one,  did  not  care 
for  him  very  much — no  one  cares  to  furnish  material 
for  incessant  persiflage. 

On  leaving  Oxford  Wilde  was  already  a  well-known 
figure;  his  sayings  were  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth, 
and  he  was  a  favorite  subject  for  caricature  in  the  pages 
of  "  Punch."  Finally  he  became  known  to  all  the  world 
as  Bunthorne  in  Gilbert  and  Sullivan's  opera  "Pa 
tience."  From  being  the  most  talked  of  man  in  Oxford 
he  became  the  most  talked  of  man  in  London — a  very 


different  thing:  many  a  reputation  has  been  lost  on 
the  road  between  Oxford  and  London.  His  reputation, 
stimulated  by  long  hair  and  velveteen  knee  breeches, 
gave  Whistler  a  chance  to  say,  "Our  Oscar  is  knee 
plush  ultra."  People  compared  him  with  Disraeli. 
When  he  first  became  the  talk  of  the  town  great  things 
were  expected  of  him;  just  what,  no  one  presumed  to 
say.  To  keep  in  the  going  while  the  going  was  good 
WTilde  published  his  volume  of  Poems  (1881),  and  it 
followed  that  every  one  wanted  to  know  what  this 
singular  young  man  had  to  say  for  himself  and  paid 
half  a  guinea  to  find  out.  The  volume  immediately 
went  through  several  editions,  and,  as  I  have  mentioned, 
was  reprinted  in  this  country. 

Of  these  Poems  the  "Saturday  Review  "  said — and  I 
thank  the  "  Saturday  Review  "  for  teaching  me  these 
words,  for  I  think  they  fitly  describe  nine-tenths  of  all 
the  poetry  that  gets  itself  published — "Mr.  Wilde's 
verses  belong  to  a  class  which  is  the  special  terror  of 
the  reviewers,  the  poetry  which  is  neither  good  nor 
bad,  which  calls  for  neither  praise  nor  blame,  and  in 
which  one  searches  in  vain  for  any  personal  touch  of 
thought  or  music." 

It  was  at  this  point  in  his  career  that  Wilde  deter 
mined  to  show  himself  to  us:  he  came  to  America  to 
lecture;  was,  of  course,  interviewed  on  his  arrival  in 
New  York,  and  spoke  with  the  utmost  disrespect  of  the 
Atlantic. 


Considering  how  little  ballast  Wilde  carried,  his 
lectures  here  were  a  great  success:  "Nothing  succeeds 
like  excess."  He  spoke  publicly  over  two  hundred 
times,  and  made  what  was  for  him  a  lot  of  money. 
Looking  back  it  was  a  daring  thing  to  do,  but  Wilde 
was  always  doing  daring  things.  To  lecture  in  New 
York,  Philadelphia  and  Boston  was  all  very  well,  but 
it  would  seem  to  have  required  courage  for  Wilde,  fresh 
from  Oxford,  his  reputation  based  on  impudence,  long 
hair,  knee  breeches,  a  volume  of  poems  and  some 
pronounced  opinions  on  art,  to  have  taken  himself 
seriously,  west  to  Omaha  and  Denver  and  north  as  far 
as  Halifax;  but  he  went  and  returned  alive  with  at 
least  one  story  which  will  never  die.  It  was  Wilde  who 
said  that  he  had  seen  in  a  dance  hall  in  a  mining  camp 
the  sign  "Don't  shoot  the  pianist;  he  is  doing  his  best." 
The  success  of  this  story  was  instant,  and  probably 
prompted  him  to  invent  the  other  one,  that  he  had 
heard  of  a  man  in  Denver  who,  turning  his  back  to 
examine  some  lithographs,  had  been  shot  through  the 
head,  which  gave  Wilde  the  chance  of  observing  how 
dangerous  it  is  to  interest  one's  self  in  bad  art. 

On  his  return  to  England  he  at  once  engaged  atten 
tion  by  his  remark,  "there  is  nothing  new  in  America— 
except  the  language":  of  him  it  was  remarked  that 
Delmonico  had  spoiled  his  figure.  From  London  he 
went  almost  immediately  to  Paris,  where  he  found 
10 


sufficient  reasons  for  cutting  his  hair  and  abandon 
ing  his  pronounced  habiliments.  Thus  he  arrived, 
as  he  said  of  himself,  at  the  end  of  his  second 
period. 

Wilde  spoke  French  fluently  and  took  steps  to 
make  himself  at  home  in  Paris:  with  what  success  is 
not  entirely  clear.  He  made  the  acquaintance  of  dis 
tinguished  people,  wrote  verses  and  devoted  a  good 
deal  of  time  to  writing  a  play  for  Mary  Anderson, 
"The  Duchess  of  Padua,"  which  was  declined  by  her 
and  was  subsequently  produced  in  this  country  by 
Lawrence  Barrett  and  Minna  Gale.  In  spite  of  their 
efforts  it  lived  but  for  a  few  nights. 

Meantime  it  cost  money  to  live  in  Paris,  especially 
to  dine  at  fashionable  cafes,  and  Wilde  decided  to 
return  to  London;  but  making  ends  meet  is  no  easier 
there  than  elsewhere.  He  wrote  a  little,  lectured  when 
he  could,  and  having  spent  the  small  inheritance  he 
had  received  from  his  father  it  seemed  that  "exit 
Oscar"  might  fairly  be  written  against  him. 

But  to  the  gratification  of  some,  and  the  surprise 
of  all,  just  about  this  time  came  the  announcement  of 
his  marriage  to  a  beautiful  and  charming  lady  of  some 
fortune,  Constance  Lloyd,  the  daughter  of  a  deceased 
barrister.  Whistler  sent  a  characteristic  wire  to  the 
church:  "May  not  be  able  to  reach  you  in  time  for 
ceremony;  don't  wait."  Indeed,  it  may  here  be 

11 


admitted  that  in  an  encounter  between  these  wits  it 
was  Jimmie  Whistler  who  usually  scored. 

Of  Whistler  as  an  artist  I  know  nothing.  Mrs. 
Pennell,  at  the  close  of  her  excellent  biography,  said, 
"his name  and  fame  will  live  forever."  This  is  a  large 
order,  but  of  Whistler  with  his  rapier-like  wit,  it  be 
hooved  all  to  beware.  In  a  weak  moment  Wilde  once 
gave  voice  of  appreciation  to  a  good  thing  of  Whistler's 
with,  "I  wish  I  had  said  that."  Quick  as  a  flash 
Jimmie's  sword  was  through  him,  and  forever,  "Never 
mind,  Oscar,  you  will."  It  may  be  that  Mrs.  Pennell 
was  right. 

But  to  return.  With  Mrs.  Wilde's  funds,  her  hus 
band's  taste  and  Whistler's  suggestions,  a  house  was 
furnished  and  decorated  in  Tite  Street,  Chelsea,  and 
for  a  time  all  went  well,  but  it  soon  became  evident 
that  some  fixed  income,  certain,  however  small,  was 
essential:  fugitive  verse  and  unsigned  articles  in 
magazines  afford  small  resource  for  an  increasing 
family.  Two  sons  were  born,  and,  driven  by  the 
spur  of  necessity,  Wilde  became  the  Editor  of  "The 
Woman's  World,"  and  for  a  time  worked  as  faithfully 
and  diligently  as  his  temperament  permitted;  but  it 
was  the  old  story  of  Pegasus  harnessed  to  the  plow. 

Except  for  editorial  work  the  next  few  years  were 
unproductive.  "Dorian  Gray,"  W'ilde's  one  novel, 
appeared  in  the  Summer  of  1890.  It  is  exceedingly 

12 


difficult  to  place:  his  claim  that  it  was  the  work  of  a 
few  days,  written  to  demonstrate  to  some  friends  his 
ability  to  write  a  novel,  may  be  dismissed  as  untrue: 
there  is  internal  evidence  to  the  contrary.  It  was 
probably  written  slowly,  as  most  of  his  work  was.  In 
its  first  form  it  appeared  in  "Lippincott's  Magazine  "  for 
July,  1890,  but  it  was  subjected  to  careful  revision  for 
publication  in  book  form.  Wilde  always  claimed  that 
he  had  no  desire  to  be  a  popular  novelist — "it  is  far 
too  easy,"  he  said. 

"Dorian  Gray"  is  an  interesting  and  powerful  but 
artificial  production,  leaving  a  bitter  taste  as  of  aloes 
in  the  mouth:  one  feels  as  though  he  had  been  handling 
a  poison.  The  law  compels  certain  care  in  the  use  of 
explosives,  and  poisons  it  is  agreed  are  best  kept  in 
packages  of  definite  shape  and  color,  that  they  may 
by  their  external  appearance  challenge  the  attention 
of  the  thoughtless:  only  Roosevelt  can  tell  without 
looking  what  book  should  and  what  should  not  bear 
the  governmental  stamp,  "Guaranteed  to  be  pure  and 
wholesome  under  the  food  and  drugs  act."  Few,  I 
think,  would  put  this  label  on  "  Dorian  Gray."  Wilde's 
own  criticism  was  that  the  book  was  inartistic  because 
it  has  a  moral;  it  has,  and  it  is  not  likely  to  be  over 
looked  in  its  general  nastiness:  in  it  he  betrays  for 
the  first  and  perhaps  the  only  time  the  decadence 
which  was  subsequently  to  be  the  cause  of  his  undoing. 

13 


I  have  great  admiration  for  what  is  called  and 
frequently  ridiculed  as  the  artistic  temperament.  I 
am  a  great  believer  in  the  sanity  of  true  genius,  espe 
cially  when  it  is  united,  as  it  was  in  the  case  of  Charles 
Lamb,  with  a  fine,  manly,  honest  bearing  toward  the 
world  and  the  things  in  it;  but  alone  it  may  lead  us  to 
yearn  with  Wilde 

"To  drift  with  every  passion  till  my  soul 
Is  a  stringed  lute  on  which  all  winds  can  play." 

It  has  been  suggested  on  good  authority  that  it  is 
very  unpleasant  to  wear  one's  heart  upon  one's  sleeve. 
To  expose  one's  soul  to  the  elements,  however  interesting 
in  theory,  must  be  very  painful  in  practice:  Wilde  was 
destined  to  find  it  so. 

Why  the  story  has  escaped  the  hand  of  the  adapter 
for  the  stage  I  never  could  understand.  The  clever 
talk  of  the  characters  in  the  novel  would  be  much  more 
acceptable  in  the  quick  give-and-take  of  a  society  play 
than  it  is  in  a  narrative  of  several  hundred  pages; 
moreover,  it  abounds  in  situations  which  are  intensely 
dramatic,  leading  up  to  an  overwhelming  climax. 

It  is  with  a  feeling  of  relief  that  one  turns  from 
"Dorian  Gray" — which,  let  us  agree,  is  a  book  which  a 
young  girl  would  hesitate  to  put  in  the  hands  of  her 
mother — to  Wilde's  other  prose  work,  so  different  in 
character.  Of  his  shorter  stories,  his  fairy  tales  and 
14 


the  rest,  it  would  be  a  delight  to  speak:  many  of  them 
are  exquisite  and  all  as  pure  and  delicate  as  a  flower, 
with  as  sweet  a  perfume.  They  do  not  know  Oscar 
Wilde  who  have  not  read  "The  Young  King  and  the 
Star  Child"  and  the  "Happy  Prince."  That  they  are 
the  work  of  the  same  brain  that  produced  "Dorian 
Gray"  is  almost  beyond  belief. 

What  a  baffling  personality  was  Wilde's!  Here  is  a 
man  who  has  really  done  more  than  William  Morris 
to  make  our  homes  artistic  and  who  is  at  one  with 
Ruskin  in  his  effort  that  our  lives  should  be  beautiful; 
he  had  a  message  to  deliver,  yet  by  reason  of  his 
flippancy  and  his  love  of  paradox  he  is  not  yet  rated 
at  his  real  worth.  It  is  difficult  for  one  who  is  first 
of  all  a  wit  to  make  a  serious  impression  on  his  listeners. 
I  think  it  is  Gilbert  who  says,  "  let  a  professed  wit  say 
'pass  the  mustard'  and  the  table  roars."  Wilde  was 
a  careful  and  painstaking  workman,  serious  as  an 
artist,  whatever  he  may  have  been  as  a  man,  and  in 
the  end  he  became  a  great  master  of  English  prose, 
working  in  words  as  an  artist  does  in  color,  trying 
first  one  and  then  another  until  he  had  secured  the 
desired  effect,  the  effect  of  silk  which  Seccombe  speaks 
of.  But  he  affected  idleness.  A  story  is  told  of  his 
spending  a  week  end  at  a  country  house.  Pleading  the 
necessity  of  working  while  the  humor  was  on  he 
begged  to  be  excused  from  joining  the  other  guests. 
15 


In  the  evening  at  dinner  his  hostess  asked  him  what 
he  had  accomplished,  and  his  reply  is  famous.  "  This 
morning,"  he  said,  "I  put  a  comma  in  one  of  my 
poems."  Amazed  and  amused  the  lady  inquired 
whether  the  afternoon's  work  had  been  equally  ex 
hausting.  "Yes,"  said  Wilde, passing  his  hand  wearily 
over  his  brow;  "this  afternoon  I  took  it  out  again." 

Just  about  the  time  that  London  had  made  up  its 
inind  that  Wilde  was  nothing  but  a  clever  man  about 
town,  welcome  as  a  guest  because  of  the  amusement 
he  afforded,  "The  Soul  of  Man  Under  Socialism"  ap 
peared  in  the  "Fortnightly  Magazine"  for  February, 
1891.  London  was  at  once  challenged  and  amazed.  This 
essay  opens  with  a  characteristic  statement,  one  of 
those  peculiarly  inverted  paradoxes  for  which  WTilde 
was  shortly  to  become  famous.  "Socialism,"  he  says, 
"would  relieve  us  from  the  sordid  necessity  of  living 
for  others,"  and  what  follows  is  Wilde  at  his  very  best. 

What  is  it  all  about?  I  am  not  sure  that  I  know: 
it  seems  to  be  a  plea  for  the  individual,  perhaps  it  is 
a  defense  of  the  poor:  it  is  said  to  have  been  translated 
into  the  languages  of  the  downtrodden,  the  Jew,  the 
Pole,  the  Russian,  and  to  be  a  comfort  to  them :  I  hope 
it  is.  Do  such  outpourings  do  any  good,  do  they  change 
conditions,  is  the  millennium  brought  nearer  thereby? 
I  hope  so.  But  if  it  is  comforting  for  the  downtrodden, 
whose  wants  are  ill  supplied,  it  is  a  sheer  delight  for 
16 


the  downtreader  who,  free  from  anxiety,  sits  in  his  easy 
chair  and  enjoys  its  technical  excellence. 

I  know  nothing  like  it:  it  is  as  fresh  as  paint,  and 
like  fresh  paint  it  sticks  to  one:  in  its  brilliant,  serious 
and  unexpected  array  of  fancies  and  theories,  in  truths 
inverted  and  distorted,  in  witticisms  which  are  in  turn 
tender  and  hard  as  flint,  one  is  delighted  and  be 
wildered.  Wilde  has  only  himself  to  blame  if  this, 
a  serious  and  beautiful  essay,  was  not  taken  seriously. 
"The  Soul  of  Man  Under  Socialism"  is  the  work  of  a 
consummate  artist  who,  taking  his  ideas,  disguises  and 
distorts  them,  polishing  them  the  while  until  they 
shine  like  jewels  in  a  rare  and  unusual  setting.  (Steady 
Edward.)  Naturally  almost  every  other  line  in  such 
a  work  is  quotable:  it  seems  to  be  a  mass  of  quotations 
which  one  is  surprised  not  to  have  heard  before. 

Interesting  as  Wilde's  other  essays  are  I  will  not 
speak  of  them:  with  the  exception  of  "Pen,  Pencil  and 
Poison,"  a  study  of  Thomas  Griffiths  Wainewright,  the 
poisoner,  they  will  inevitably  be  forgotten. 

Of  Wilde's  poems  I  am  not  competent  to  speak, 
they  are  full  of  Arcady  and  Eros;  nor  am  I  of  those 
who  believe  that  "every  poet  is  the  spokesman  of 
God."  A  book  agent  once  called  on  Abraham  Lincoln 
and  sought  to  sell  him  a  book  for  which  the  President 
had  no  use.  Failing,  he  asked  Lincoln  if  he  would  not 
write  an  endorsement  of  the  work  which  would  enable 
17 


him  to  sell  it  to  others,  on  which  the  President,  always 
anxious  to  oblige,  with  a  humor  entirely  his  own,  wrote, 
"  Any  one  who  likes  this  kind  of  a  book  will  find  it 
just  the  kind  of  a  book  they  like."  So  it  is  with 
Wilde's  poetry:  by  many  it  is  highly  esteemed,  but  I 
am  inclined  to  regard  it  as  a  part  of  his  "literary  wild 
oats." 

After  several  attempts  in  the  field  of  serious  drama, 
in  which  he  was  unsuccessful,  by  a  fortunate  chance  he 
turned  his  attention  to  the  lighter  forms  of  comedy,  in 
which  he  was  destined  to  count  only  the  greatest  as 
his  rivals.  I  think  it  is  Pater  who  has  said  that 
Wilde's  comedies  have  been  unexcelled  since  Sheridan: 
this  is  high  praise,  but  not  too  high;  but  it  is  rather  to 
contrast  than  to  compare  such  a  grand  old  comedy  as 
the  "School  for  Scandal"  with,  say,  "The  Importance 
of  Being  Earnest."  They  are  both  brilliant,  both  arti 
ficial,  they  both  reflect  in  some  manner  the  life  and  the 
atmosphere  of  their  time,  but  the  mirror  which  Sheridan 
holds  up  to  nature  is  of  steel  and  the  picture  is  hard 
and  cold:  Wilde,  on  the  other  hand,  uses  an  exaggerating 
glass,  which  seems  specially  designed  to  reflect  warmth 
and  fluffiness. 

Wilde  was  the  first  to  produce  a  play  which  depends 

almost  entirely  for  its  success  on  brilliant  talk.     In 

this  field  Shaw  is  now  conspicuous:  he  can  grow  the 

flower  now  because  he  has  the  seed.     It  was  Wilde 

18 


who  taught  him  how,  Wilde  who  in  three  light  comedies 
gave  the  English  stage  something  it  had  been  without 
for  a  century.  His  comedies  are  irresistibly  clever, 
sparkle  with  wit,  with  a  flippant  and  insolent  levity, 
and  withal  have  a  theatrical  dexterity  which  Shaw's 
are  almost  entirely  without.  While  greatly  inferior 
in  construction  to  Pinero's  they  are  as  brilliantly 
written:  the  plots  amount  to  almost  nothing:  talk, 
not  the  play,  is  the  thing;  and  but  for  their  author's 
eclipse  they  would  be  as  constantly  on  the  boards 
to-day  in  this  country  and  in  England  as  they  at  pres 
ent  are  on  the  Continent. 

The  first  comedy,  "Lady  Windermere's  Fan,"  was 
produced  at  the  St.  James's,  February  22,  1892.  Its 
success,  despite  the  critics,  was  instant:  full  of  saucy 
repartee,  overwrought  with  epigrams  of  the  peculiar 
kind  conspicuous  in  the  "Soul  of  Man"  it  delighted 
the  audience.  "Punch  "  made  a  feeble  pun  about  Wilde's 
play  being  tame,  forgetting  the  famous  dictum  that 
the  great  end  of  a  comedy  is  to  make  an  audience 
merry,  and  this  end  Wilde  had  attained,  and  he  kept 
his  audiences  in  this  same  humor  for  several  years — 
until  the  end.  This  is  perhaps,  in  this  country  his  best 
known  play.  It  was  successfully  given  in  Philadelphia 
only  a  year  or  two  ago.  It  might,  I  think,  be  called 
his  "pleasant  play":  for  a  time  it  looks  as  though  a 
pure  wife  were  going  astray,  but  the  audience  is  not 

19 


kept  long  is  suspense:  the  plot  can  be  neglected  and 
the  lines  enjoyed  with  the  satisfactory  feeling  that  it 
will  all  come  out  right  in  the  end. 

"A  Woman  of  No  Importance"  is  in  my  judgment 
the  least  excellent  of  his  four  comedies;  it  might  be 
called  his  "unpleasant"  play:  it  is  two  acts  of  sheer 
talk  in  Wilde's  usual  vein  and  two  acts  of  acting. 
The  plot  is,  as  usual,  insignificant.  A  certain  lazy 
villain  in  high  official  position  meets  a  young  fellow 
and  offers  him  a  post  as  his  secretary.  The  boy, 
much  pleased,  introduces  his  mother,  and  the  villain 
discovers  that  the  boy  is  his  own  son.  The  son  insists 
that  the  father  should  marry  his  mother,  but  she 
declines.  The  father  offers  to  make  what  amends  he 
can,  loses  his  temper  and  refers  to  the  lady  as  a  woman 
of  no  importance,  for  which  he  gets  his  face  well 
smacked.  The  son  marries  a  rich  American  Puritan. 
This  enables  Wilde  to  be  very  witty  at  the  expense  of 
American  fathers,  mothers  and  daughters.  Tree 
played  the  villain  very  well,  it  is  said. 

Never  having  seen  Wilde's  next  play  acted  I  once 
innocently  framed  this  statement  for  the  domestic 
circle,  thus,  "I  have  never  seen  'An  Ideal  Husband,'" 
and  upon  my  wife  sententiously  replying  that  she 
had  never  seen  one  either,  I  became  careful  to  be 
more  explicit  in  future  statements.  No  less  clever 
than  the  others,  it  has  plot  and  action,  and  is  interest- 
20 


ing  to  the  end.  Of  all  his  plays  it  is  the  most  dramatic. 
Upon  its  first  production  it  was  provided  with  a  splendid 
cast,  including  Lewis  Waller,  Charles  Hawtrey,  Julia 
Neilson,  Maude  Millett  and  Fanny  Brough.  In  the 
earlier  plays  all  the  characters  talked  Oscar  Wilde:  in 
this  Wilde  took  the  trouble,  for  it  must  have  been  to 
him  a  trouble,  to  conceal  himself  and  let  his  people 
speak  for  themselves:  they  stay  in  their  own  char 
acters  in  what  they  do  as  well  as  in  what  they  say. 
"An  Ideal  Husband"  was  produced  at  the  Hay- 
market  early  in  l&£f,  and  a  few  weeks  later  at  the 
St.  James's  "The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest." 

Wilde  called  this  a  trivial  comedy  for  serious  people. 
It  is  clever  beyond  criticism,  but,  as  one  critic  says, 
one  might  as  well  sit  down  and  gravely  discuss  the 
true  inwardness  of  a  souffle.  In  it  Wilde  fairly  lets 
himself  loose:  such  talk  there  never  was  before;  it 
fairly  bristles  with  epigram;  the  plot  is  a  farce;  it  is 
a  mental  and  verbal  extravaganza.  Wilde  was  at 
his  best,  scintillating  as  he  had  never  done  before, 
and  doing  it  for  the  last  time.  Wilde  is  reported  to 
have  said  that  the  first  act  is  ingenious,  the  second 
beautiful  and  the  third  abominably  clever:  ingenious 
it  is,  but  its  beauty  and  cleverness  are  beyond  praise. 
To  have  seen  the  lovely  Miss  Millard  as  Cecily,  the 
country  girl,  to  hear  her  tell  Irene  Vanbrugh,  Gwen 
dolen,  the  London  society  queen,  "that  flowers  are  as 

21 


common  in  the  country  as  people  are  in  London"  is 
a  delight  never  to  be  forgotten. 

Wilde  was  now  at  the  height  of  his  fame.  That 
the  licenser  of  the  stage  had  forbidden  the  performance 
of  "Salome"  was  a  disappointment,  but  Sarah  Bernhardt 
had  promised  to  produce  it  in  Paris,  and,  not  think 
ing  that  when  his  troubles  came  upon  him  she  would 
break  her  word,  he  was  able  to  overcome  his  chagrin. 

Only  a  year  or  two  before  he  had  been  in  need,  if 
not  in  abject  poverty.  He  was  now  in  receipt  of  large 
royalties.  No  form  of  literary  effort  makes  money 
faster  than  a  successful  play.  Wilde  had  two  run 
ning  at  the  best  theatres.  His  name  was  on  every 
lip  in  London,  even  the  cabbies  knew  him  by  sight: 
he  had  arrived  at  last,  but  his  stay  was  only  for  a 
moment.  Against  the  advice  and  wishes  of  his  friends, 
with  "fatal  insolence,"  he  adopted  a  course  which,  had 
he  been  capable  of  thought,  he  must  have  seen  would 
inevitably  lead  to  his  destruction. 

To  those  mental  scavengers,  the  psychologists,  I 
leave  the  determination  of  the  exact  nature  of  the 
disease  which  was  the  cause  of  Wilde's  downfall:  it  is 
enough  for  me  to  know  that  whom  the  gods  would 
destroy  they  first  make  mad. 

The  next  two  years  Wilde  spent  in  solitary  and 
degrading  seclusion:  his  sufferings,  mental  and  phys 
ical,  can  be  imagined.  Many  have  fallen  from  heights 

22 


greater  than  his,  but  none  to  depths  more  humiliating. 
Many  noble  men  and  dainty  women  have  been  sub 
jected  to  greater  indignities  than  he,  but  they  have 
been  supported  by  their  belief  in  the  justice  or  honor 
of  the  cause  for  which  they  suffered. 

Wilde  was  not,  however,  sustained  by  the  conscious 
ness  of  innocence,  nor  was  he  so  mentally  dwarfed  as 
to  be  unable  to  realize  the  awfulness  of  his  fate.  The 
literary  result  was  "De  Profundis."  Written  while  in 
prison,  in  the  form  of  a  letter  to  his  friend  Robert 
Ross,  it  was  not  published  until  five  years  after  his 
death:  indeed,  only  about  one-third  of  the  whole  has 
as  yet  appeared  in  English. 

"De  Profundis"  may  be  in  parts  offensive,  but  as 
a  specimen  of  English  prose  it  is  magnificent;  it  is  by 
way  of  becoming  a  classic:  no  student  of  literature 
can  neglect  this  cry  of  a  soul  lost  to  this  world,  intent 
upon  proving — I  know  not  what — that  art  is  greater 
than  life,  perhaps.  Much  has  been  written  in  regard 
to  it:  by  some  it  is  said  to  show  that  even  at  the  time 
of  his  deepest  degradation  he  did  not  appreciate  how 
low  he  had  fallen,  that  to  the  last  he  was  only  a  poseur — 
a  phrase  maker;  that  genuine  as  his  sorrow  was,  he 
nevertheless  was  playing  with  it,  and  was  simply  in 
dulging  himself  in  rhetoric  when  he  said,  "I,  once  a 
lord  of  language,  have  no  words  in  which  to  express 
my  anguish  and  my  shame." 

23 


One  would  say  that  it  was  not  the  sort  of  book 
which  would  become  popular;  nevertheless,  more  than 
twenty  editions  have  been  published  in  English,  and 
it  has  been  translated  into  French,  German,  Italian 
and  Russian. 

It  was  inevitable  that  "De  Profundis"  should  be 
come  the  subject  of  controversy:  Oscar  Wilde's  sin 
cerity  has  always  been  challenged;  he  was  called 
affected.  His  answer  to  this  charge  is  complete  and 
conclusive:  "The  value  of  an  idea  has  nothing  what 
ever  to  do  with  the  sincerity  of  the  man  who  expresses 
it." 

For  many  years,  indeed  until  quite  recently,  his 
name  cast  a  blight  over  all  his  work.  This  was  in 
evitable,  but  it  was  inevitable  also  that  the  work  of 
such  a  genius  should  sooner  or  later  be  recognized. 
Only  a  few  years  ago  I  heard  a  cultured  lady  say,  "I 
never  expected  to  hear  his  name  mentioned  in  polite 
society,"  but  the  time  is  rapidly  approaching  when 
Oscar  Wilde  will  come  into  his  own,  when  he  will  be 
recognized  as  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  original 
writers  of  his  time.  When  shall  we  English-speaking 
people  learn  that  a  man's  work  is  one  thing  and  his 
life  another? 

It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  Wilde's  life  did  not 
end  with  "De  Profundis,"  but  his  misfortunes  were  to 
continue.  After  his  release  from  prison  he  went  to 

24 


France,  where  he  lived  under  the  name  of  Sebastian 
Melmoth;  but  as  Sherard,  his  biographer,  says,  "He 
hankered  after  respectability."  It  was  no  longer  the 
social  distinction  which  the  unthinking  crave  when 
they  have  all  else:  this  great  writer,  he  who  had  been 
for  a  brief  moment  the  idol  of  cultured  London,  sought 
mere  respectability,  and  sought  it  in  vain. 

Only  when  he  was  neglected  and  despised,  miserable 
and  broken  of  spirit,  sincere  feeling  at  last  overcame 
the  affectation  which  was  his  real  nature  and  he  wrote 
his  one  great  poem,  "The  Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol." 
No  longer  could  the  " Saturday  Review"  "search  in 
vain  for  the  personal  touch  of  thought  and  music  " :  the 
thought  is  there,  very  simple  and  direct  and  personal 
without  a  doubt:  the  music  is  no  longer  the  modulated 
noise  of  his  youth.  The  Ballad  is  an  almost  faultless 
work  of  art.  What  could  be  more  impressive  than  the 
description  of  daybreak  in  prison. 

"At  last  I  saw  the  shadowed  bars, 

Like  a  lattice  wrought  in  lead, 
Move  right  across  the  whitewashed  wall 

That  faced  my  three-plank  bed, 
And  I  knew  that  somewhere  in  the  world 

God's  dreadful  dawn  was  red." 

The  life  begun  with  such  promise  drew  to  a  close: 
an  outcast,  deserted  by  his  friends,  the  few  who  re- 

25 


mained  true  to  him  he  insulted  and  abused.  He  be 
came  dissipated,  wandered  from  France  to  Italy  and 
back  again.  In  mercy  it  were  well  to  draw  the  curtain. 
The  end  came  in  Paris  with  the  close  of  the  century 
he  had  done  so  much  to  adorn.  He  died  on  November 
30,  1900,  and  was  buried  by  his  faithful  friend,  Robert 
Ross,  in  a  grave  which  was  leased  for  a  few  years  in 
Bagneux  Cemetery. 

The  kindness  of  Robert  Ross  to  Oscar  Wilde  is  one 
of  the  most  touching  things  in  literary  history.  The 
time  has  not  yet  come  to  speak  of  it  at  length,  but  the 
facts  are  known  and  will  not  always  be  withheld. 
Owing  largely  to  his  efforts  a  permanent  resting-place 
has  recently  been  secured  in  the  most  famous  cemetery 
in  France,  the  Pere  Lachaise.  There  in  an  immense 
sarcophagus  of  granite,  curiously  carved,  will  shortly 
be  placed  the  remains  of  him  who  wrote: 

"Society,  as  we  have  constituted  it,  will  have  no 
place  for  me,  has  none  to  offer;  but  Nature,  whose 
sweet  rains  fall  on  unjust  and  just  alike,  will  have 
clefts  in  the  rock  where  I  may  hide,  and  sweet  valleys 
in  whose  silence  I  may  weep  undisturbed.  She  will 
hang  the  night  with  stars  so  that  I  may  walk  abroad 
in  the  darkness  without  stumbling,  and  send  the  wind 
over  my  footprints  so  that  none  may  track  me  to  my 
hurt:  she  will  cleanse  me  in  great  waters  and  with 
bitterness  make  me  whole." 
26 


It  is  too  early  to  judge  Wilde's  work  entirely  apart 
from  his  life:  to  do  so  will  always  be  difficult:  we 
could  do  so  the  sooner  if  we  had  a  Dr.  Johnson  among 
us  to  speak  with  authority  and  say,  "Let  not  his 
misfortunes  be  remembered,  he  was  a  very  great 
man." 


A.  E.  N. 
December,  1912. 


27 


^^Sr.BOIMOW*D 


